Aliens vs. Predator: Booty: Plot & the Queen
Aliens vs. Predator: Booty is a 1996 one-shot from Dark Horse Comics, written by Barbara Kesel and drawn by Ron Randall. Evie, Shel, and Norley worked a cargo ship whose other crew were posing as Colonial Marines. The hold carried young Xenomorphs and a Xenomorph Queen, stolen Weyland-Yutani property bound for the Innominata, the research station in Aliens: Labyrinth. Two Yautja hunters boarded, killed the men in Marine armor, and took the Queen out through an airlock.
Plot Summary
Cargo For The Innominata
Norley was on the bridge when Shel asked how the work in cargo bay four was going. The men posing as Colonial Marines had taken that bay apart, and Evie was welding extra walls into place. Shel thought the extra metal was there so the crew would survive the cargo, while Norley expected all of them to die once those Marines delivered the creatures, which was why he watched the bay from the bridge. The three of them had signed on for the money and for the guns that came with it. A hull alert lit the board, and Shel treated it as another false reading from the cutting in the bay, until a small craft locked onto the hull.
A hunter in Yautja armor was in the bay while Toff and the other impostors argued over the cages. Toff wanted to know what the man who ran the ship would do when he learned they were bogus Marines, and the reply was that stealing Weyland-Yutani property for the Innominata was no cleaner than the uniforms. A bald crewman had been taunting a caged Xenomorph about that station and about electrodes in its head. He asked whether the creatures were secure, and he was told he was worrying about nothing. The hunter came out of a cloak and killed him. The crewman got a mayday off and reached for a cutoff. Wrist blades and a plasma shot finished him. In the hold, the young Xenomorphs hit the netting, and acid blood burned through the fight.
Loose In The Hold
The cages failed, and Xenomorphs killed the men in Marine armor in the bay while the blood on the monitors reached the bridge. Norley saw a body go down on the screen and left his chair. Shel counted five Xenomorphs in the corridors, with one of them heading for Evie, and he wanted that corridor opened to vacuum. Norley refused, because Evie was out of her suit and the vacuum would kill her. She was on the deck with a welding torch, working through the alarm, and she did not answer when they told her to pull the gear back.
Evie met one of the Xenomorphs with the torch. It threw her, and she burned it from the floor while Norley came down the corridor with a gun. Norley held up a severed hand from that body, fingers and one long talon, and called it a souvenir. Shel expected more Warrior Xenomorphs out of the hold behind the first ones. Three red marks showed on Evie's neck. Victor had seen the hunters in the corridors. He treated the Marine disguise as finished and told Evie, Shel, and Norley to find a pod and seal it.
The Two Hunters
The two hunters fought the Xenomorphs in the bay with spears, shoulder weapons, and blades. One of them threw Norley clear and went back at the creature on him. Norley told Shel and Evie to run and stayed back to buy them time while the Xenomorphs and the hunters cut into each other. The hunters could leave a fight without a shadow. Shel took the vanishing for invisibility or for teleportation. Evie did not want to drop the welding unit, because it was the only tool she trusted, and Norley told her to leave it.
They counted three Xenomorphs, two hunters, and two dead men in Marine armor. The hunters had killed a small Xenomorph and had left the three humans alone, so Evie decided the prize was the mother and that the three of them were not the prey. They moved on with a lamp Norley called Bertha, because Evie wanted to see the next threat if she was going to die in a passageway on that cargo ship. The next creature in the corridor was the Queen. Norley looked at the size of her and treated the three of them as bait.
The Queen
The Queen filled the corridor, and smaller Xenomorphs moved around her. Evie pointed at one of the smaller ones and noted that it had no tail. Norley wanted the group moving, because a shot from a shoulder cannon in that passage could open the hull. The hunters closed on the Queen with spears while the smaller creatures fought around them, and Shel warned that a row of Xenomorphs was coming up behind the humans. The hunters put a net over the Queen and hauled her between them. A Xenomorph Norley called Stubby broke toward Evie. She would not give up the torch. Norley shot that one down, and when the corridor went quiet Shel judged that the hunters had the Queen under control.
The Airlock
The hunters dragged the netted Queen down the passage. One of them took off his bio-mask and held it out to Evie, for the Xenomorph she had burned with the torch. She took the mask, decided she would make a good alien pirate, and put it on as a human Predator. The hunters left through the airlock they had used on the way in, the same lock that had tripped the hull alerts when their craft first locked on. Norley and Shel wanted to find the rest of the men in Marine armor, agree on what they would tell anyone who asked, and stay alive. In the mask, Evie wanted that same protection for herself.
Key Characters
- Evie welded the extra walls in cargo bay four and fought a Xenomorph with her torch. She decided the hunters wanted the Queen, took the bio-mask one of them offered her, and put it on at the airlock.
- Shel watched the monitors, counted the Xenomorphs in the corridors, and wanted to vent one of those corridors until Norley stopped him. He was the one who judged that the hunters had the Queen once the net was on.
- Norley left the bridge to reach Evie, carried the lamp he called Bertha, and shot the Xenomorph he called Stubby. He treated the three of them as bait and, at the airlock, wanted to find the other men in Marine armor before anyone else died.
- Toff was one of the men posing as Colonial Marines. He asked what the ship's operator would do when the theft and the false uniforms came out.
- Victor saw the hunters in the corridors, treated the Marine disguise as finished, and told Evie, Shel, and Norley to find a pod and seal it.
- The two Yautja hunters boarded from a small craft, killed the men in Marine armor, fought the Xenomorphs, and hauled the Queen off in a net. One of them gave Evie his bio-mask, and she put it on before they left through the airlock.
Editions
Dark Horse Comics published Aliens vs. Predator: Booty as a full-color one-shot in January 1996. Barbara Kesel wrote the one-shot, Ron Randall drew it, Chris Chalenor colored it, and Steve Dutro lettered it, with Bob Cooper editing, Harald Graham designing, and Den Beauvais painting the cover. The story had first run in twelve parts in Diamond's Previews, from the February 1995 catalogue through January 1996. Dark Horse reprinted it in Aliens vs. Predator Omnibus Volume 2 in October 2007, and a digital edition followed on March 6, 2013, with the Beauvais cover again.
Behind The Scenes
Barbara Kesel had worked as an editor on Dark Horse's Aliens and Aliens vs. Predator comics, and Booty was her first script in the crossover line. Ron Randall had drawn the Predator comics Predator: Cold War and Predator: Dark River. Den Beauvais painted the one-shot cover, the same painting used as the title page in the omnibus. Booty was one of two stories in those lines that first appeared in Diamond's Previews catalogue. The other was Aliens: Earth Angel, which Dark Horse also collected as a one-shot after that catalogue run.
Conclusion
Aliens vs. Predator: Booty is Barbara Kesel's 1996 Dark Horse one-shot, drawn by Ron Randall. It follows Evie, Shel, and Norley on a cargo ship where men posing as Colonial Marines were hauling a Xenomorph Queen toward the Innominata. The two Yautja hunters took the Queen out through the airlock, and Evie put the hunter's bio-mask on.
External Sources
Tag Categories: Avp Comics
